Although The BBT (Big Bang Theory) can claim to be the
dominant cosmology just now, many increasingly regard it as little more than ideology.
There are no lack of web resources devoted to its demise, so, rather than going
over too much old ground, below is a summary of some of its more controversial
claims.

"Plasma
is for everyone." Anthony Peratt

The CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background)

Big Bang supporters are
fond of claiming CMB radiation as conclusive evidence for their theory, but these
claims begin to look somewhat revisionist in the light of the following facts.

The
background temperature of space was predicted by Guillaume, Eddington, Regener,
Nernst, Herzberg, Finlay-Freundlich and Max Born, based on a universe without
expansion, and prior to the discovery of the CMB. Their predictions were far more
accurate than models based on the Big Bang.

In 1965, two
young radio astronomers, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, accidentally discovered
the CMB using a small horn antenna. This discovery was quickly seized upon by
Big Bang supporters and they were later awarded the Nobel Prize!

"It
is important to understand that while a theory may permit observations, those
observations do not necessarily verify the theory." Anon

Light element abundances

Light element abundances were
not correctly predicted by the Big Bang, contrary to popular myth. They are yet
another example of retrodictions or retro-fitting.

The Red shift controversy

No discussion of the BBT
seems complete without mentioning Halton Arp, who was an outstanding pupil of
Edwin Hubble. His book, The Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, details many Redshift
anomalies.

Redshift refers to the fact that light is shifted into the red
(longer wavelength) end of the spectrum when it is emitted from a source which
is moving away from the observer. This is known as the Doppler effect. Arp has
discovered a number of astronomical objects that seem to be interacting or related
in some way, and yet have very different red shifts. This calls into doubt the
Doppler interpretation, and therefore the very idea that the universe is expanding.
Big Bangers simply choose to close their eyes to this blasphemy.

Arp is
often described as the modern day Galileo because he was denied observational
time at a number of US observatories, and moved to work at The Max Planck institute
in Germany.

If redshift is a measure
of distance, as astronomers claim, this gives rise to a peculiar problem. When
the galaxies outside our own are plotted, they all appear to point directly at
the earth. Copernicus, of course, knew that the Earth was not the centre of everything,
but the redshift-as-distance interpretation effectively takes us back to the dogma
of the early church. The 'Fingers of God' problem, therefore, provides further
proof that the doppler interpretation favoured by Big Bangers is wrong. The universe
is not expanding. Unfortunately, Big Bangers also tend to display a religious
devotion to their theory, and prefer to ignore this problem.

"Since
religion intrinsically rejects empirical methods, there should never be any attempt
to reconcile scientific theories with religion." Hannes Alfven

The Hubble Constant

Edwin Hubble, 1889-1953,
is famous for confirming the existence of galaxies outside the Milky Way, and
the constant of proportionality between the 'apparent' recessional velocity of
galaxies and their distance is called Hubble's constant, although some have described
it as the least constant of all constants, and refer to it as the Hubble 'Mostly
Constant'.

Hubble himself didn't agree that Red shifts were Doppler (see
his book 'The Observational Approach to Cosmology'), but his warnings went unheeded.
He pointed out several difficulties with this interpretation, not the least of
which involved complex problems in relation to photons. Hubble knew his observations
were not in agreement with the necessary brightness correction, and also believed
that a more simple -- and therefore preferable -- non-curved-space cosmology resulted
from a non-Doppler interpretation.

Dark Matter and Dark Energy

The BBT relies on the existence of non-baryonic or
Dark Matter to resolve glaring contradictions with observation.
Yet data has accumulated that dark matter is not so
much invisible as non-existent. Despite almost 30years
of extensive searching, it is yet to be found, and the
same goes for its partner in crime, Dark Energy.

Anthony Perratt contends
that electrromagnetic forces can be shown to be several orders of magnitude greater
than gravitational forces, especially in certain types of plasma, and also that
electromagnetic forces can have a longer range. On the largest scales, evidence
that plasmas exhibit external forces on physical objects such as galaxies is the
same as that which has lead standard model researchers to postulate dark matter
and dark energy.

"We
have to learn again that science without contact with experiments is an enterprise
which is likely to go completely astray into imaginary conjecture." Hannes
Alfven

Religious Motivations

To Alfven, the Big
Bang was a myth devised to explain creation:

"I
was there when Abbe Georges Lemaitre first proposed this theory. Lemaitre was,
at the time, both a member of the Catholic hierarchy and an accomplished scientist.
He said in private that this theory was a way to reconcile science with St. Thomas
Aquinas' theological dictum of creatio ex nihilo or creation out of nothing.

"There
is no rational reason to doubt that the universe has existed indefinitely, for
an infinite time. It is only myth that attempts to say how the universe came to
be, either four thousand or twenty billion years ago.

"Since
religion intrinsically rejects empirical methods, there should never be any attempt
to reconcile scientific theories with religion. An infinitely old universe, always
evolving, may not be compatible with the Book of Genesis. However, religions such
as Buddhism get along without having any explicit creation mythology and are in
no way contradicted by a universe without a beginning or end. Creatio ex nihilo,
even as religious doctrine, only dates to around AD 200. The key is not to confuse
myth and empirical results, or religion and science."

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly
what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be
replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory
which states that this has already happened." Douglas Adams

Lemaitre is famous for his description
of the beginning of the universe as 'A Day without Yesterday' in reference to
the creation account in Genesis.

George Gamow, another famous
Big Bang proponent, had no compunction in describing the graphs of conditions
in the Big Bang as 'Divine Creation Curves', and sent a copy of his book 'The
Creation of the Universe' to the then Pope. Mind you, even the pope favoured an
oscillating model of the Universe in which the Big Bang was not a literal beginning.

General Relativity

Albert Einstein favoured
some form of Steady State model of the universe, but there was a problem. His
famous theory, General Relativity, didn't seem to work out for a SS universe.
A catholic priest and mathematician came to his rescue with the Big Bang expanding
universe model (see above), but Einstein had reservations (see quote, right).

To
be fair to Einstein, it should be noted that he was never satisfied with his own
theories and that he was modest enough to admit as much. He was aware that GR
needed tieing back down to reality, but to this day GR and Quantum Mechanics remain
incompatible. Unfortunately it was others who ran with his ideas, although this
fact is rarely discussed, and today we see cosmology in crisis!

"Since
the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity, I do not understand
it myself any more." Einstein

The Conservation of Energy

According to the Big Bang
there was nothing in the beginning, which exploded! The trouble with this is that
Nothing does Not Exist!

In other words, The BBT violates one of the best-tested
laws of physics -- the conservation of energy and matter, since it produces energy
at a titanic rate out of nothingness, and to ignore this basic law would never
be acceptable in any other field of physics.

BB supporters dance around
this issue by claiming that the initial rapid expansion (or explosion, or whatever
they like to call it from one moment to the next) created the laws of physics
which we now observe. A classic case of circular reasoning, no less.

"In
the beginning there was nothing, which exploded." Terry Pratchett

Black Holes tear logic apart

Astronomers require invisible,
super-compressed matter at the centre of galaxies because without Black Holes
gravitational equations fail to account for the observed movement and compact
energetic activity. But charged plasma achieves such effects routinely and without
recourse to abstract math. See the Plasma Focus explanation on the Techncal
II page of this site. Additionally, plasma scientists can now replicate the
evolution of galactic structures both experimentally and in computer simulations
without resorting to this popular and problematic fiction.

The requirement
for Black Holes arises from Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which explains
gravity as the warping of space-time caused by massive objects. Because gravity
is a near infinitely weak force, almost infinite amounts of mass are required.
Mainstream theories hope that a sufficiently massive star, when it dies, will
collapse under its own gravity to a single point. Not even light can escape, which
conveniently accounts for the fact that BHs cannot be observed. However, these
infinite forces require a finite limit in order that they don't swallow everything
(that would be greedy)! These relativistic boundaries (contradictions?) are referred
to as Event Horizons.

Black Holes are often described as one of the most successful predictions of Relativity, although it is less often mentioned that Einstein was very skeptical about the hypothesis. Some argue that he failed to clearly articulate his reasons why, however.

It is always amusing to see Consensus Science playing catchup with the Electric Universe.

A new study of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies has found magnetic fields play an impressive role in the systems’ dynamics. In fact, in dozens of black holes surveyed, the magnetic field strength matched the force produced by the black holes’ powerful gravitational pull, says a team of scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) in Bonn, Germany. The findings are published in this week’s issue of Nature.

"Physics
is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because
we know so little." Bertrand Russell

Nebular Hypothesis

According to this hypothesis,
the planets and stars eventually accreted from the giant dust cloud produced by
the Big Bang. It is also assumed that the planets have occupied more-or-less steady
and unchanging orbits ever since, and that gravity and inertia are the sole agents
responsible. There is no direct evidence or observation to support these conclusions,
however. They remain no more than guesswork, albeit guesswork that has solidified
into doctrine.

"The
extraordinary thing is that scientists accept the Big Bang and in the same breath
deride the Creationists." Wallace Thornhill

Additional Resources

Eric Lerner is a Plasma Cosmologist noted for his criticism of the Big Bang.
He wrote 'The Big Bang Never Happened', which can be ordered online from the link
below. He is currently Executive Director of the Focus Fusion Society, and President
of Lawrenceville Plasma Physics in New Jersey.

"The
observers come in now with the belief that we live in a Big Bang Universe, and
therefore their ways of understanding are tailored to that... They don't come
in with the possibility that there are alternatives... There is a complete lack
of balance in the way observational programs and funding are conducted..."
Geoffrey Burbridge, Theoretical Astrophysicist

In the eye of the beholder

Fred Hoyle was the first
to use the term 'Big Bang'. He did so disparagingly, but by way of irony it stuck.
The term turned out to have a simple and memorable elegance.

When Einstein met the catholic priest and mathematician
Georges Lemaitre in 1933, he said: "This is the
most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation
to which I have ever listened."

So it seems that the big bang does
have some merit after all. Artistic merit.

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind ...
a legitimate conflict between science and religion cannot exist." Einstein